Konstantin Putrya shed light on the intricacies of ship arrests in Russia.
First, parties to disputes have recently begun using alternative legal mechanisms to impose restrictions on vessel departures. Instead of pursuing formal ship arrests under the Merchant Shipping Code and international conventions, claimants are turning to the FSB Border Service to have vessels barred from departing the country. It is a neat way of achieving the same result while bypassing the legal requirements governing ship arrests.
A second trend involves the proportionality of interim relief. Russian courts have traditionally considered the amount claimed in relation to the vessel’s market value, an approach that has made it particularly difficult to secure an arrest where the underlying claim is relatively modest. However, court judgments handed down in 2026 suggest that a different approach may be gaining ground. Should this approach become more widely adopted, creditors could have considerably greater scope to obtain security for maritime claims.
P.S. NAVICUS.LAW is sponsoring the DRC Maritime Arbitration Forum for the third year running.
